Opinion PollA recent newspaper opinion poll in Croatia named Tito as the greatestCroat. Below is my response to that propaganda trick which is highlyunrepresentative of public opinion in Croatia.

As I reflect on the idea that anyone in their right mind in Croatiacould vote for Tito as the 'Greatest Croat' in a recent opinion poll,first it needs to be said that there is no proof that all of those whovoted for Tito were of Croatian origin. A great propaganda trick it is,and media coverage of it seems to use a similar language. There arestill a few who attempt to rehabilitate Tito.

According to the well-known American author Michael Moore, in his book'Stupid White Men', Tito should be reincarnated in a multi-billiondollar Lazarus Project. Moore mistakenly argues that under Tito therewas "peace" but when he died all hell broke loose. Moore needs toresearch a little bit more! "Reincarnating Tito" is the heading of anarticle on the internet about Kumrovec (Transitions Online). Also, thelast scene of a Croatian-produced movie about the ghost of Tito wascensored on Australian television because of words that Tito will not beheard from again.

A Personal ReflectionAn opinion poll, a rumour or story, or knowledge from the classroom isone thing; but it is another thing altogether to believe it, much lessbegin to deeply understand it. I have sat and reflected amongst theruins of Zadar, bombed by the western Allies in 1944 to defeat Italianoccupation. I have also sat and reflected at the Camp X memorial nearToronto where Anglo/American and pro-Yugoslav resistance forces weretrained, some ultimately ending up in the Slovenian mountains in 1944.

part of Camp X mural at Whitby Ontario Canada at Garden of theUnforgotten

In 1989, I reflected on makeshift barbed-wire handcuffs as I held themin my hand, removed by journalists from the skeletons of Tito's victimsfound in mass graves at Jazovka.

I have come to understand the need to defeat Nazism and Fascism, asGerman submarines sank ships in Canadian waters. When you are underattack you organize your defence, the defence of your civilians and yourproperty and your nation. After a war you commit to reconstruction. Tito did the opposite, atleast in Croatia, and evidence is there if you search for it.

In contrast to the western society I grew up in, I could not begin tounderstand Tito's brutal tactics, even though I have come to know aboutthem. The concept of genocide was outside the realm of my personalunderstanding. I knew it happened but it didn't fully register in mymind because it was foreign to me, as if from Mars. My sheltered andprivileged upbringing had not prepared me for such horrendous concepts.For me, oppression equated with poverty, and discrimination equated withracism. These are things I witnessed in contrast to my own personalexperience. There was nothing I could equate genocide with in my mind.

I had heard about Tito, read about Tito, learned about Tito and Titoismat university, and witnessed the legacy of trauma survivors experiencedfrom living under Tito's rule, yet it still wasn't registering! Evenamongst the old surviving Croatian communist elite it does not seem tohave registered, as to what it was like to be an ordinary Croatiancitizen. The current Croatian President Mesic's comment about the Titowin in the opinion poll illustrates just how out of touch he is with hispeople when he alleged that Tito fulfilled the destiny of the Croatiannation!

Genocide of Croatian PeopleOne of the ministers of the first Kingdom of Croats Serbs and Slovenes,Pribitchevic, remarked in the 1920s that the Sava River would flowbackwards before the Croats would ever accept Serbian hegemony. Inbetween the collapse of the first Royalist Yugoslavia and the impositionof Communist Yugoslavia, there was Croatian resistance to Serbianhegemony. However, most of that generation were massacred during Tito's"peace" as Tito uttered the words that the Sava River would flowbackwards before Croats ever got their freedom.

Immediately following WWII Tito organized a genocide of the Croatianpopulation. The genocide of Croatian people is known as the "BleiburgGenocide". It began after massive columns of Croatian people, in May1945, were turned back from various crossings at the British Sector ofthe Austrian border. But the Austrian border region itself was amatter of contention between Tito and the Western Allies in May 1945.Some Croats, including civilians and women and children, who had alreadysurrendered, were immediately killed by Tito's Partisans in this noman's land.

Tito's terrorism took the form of mass executions, death marches, gulagimprisonment, purges (32,000 Croatian intellectuals lost theirlivelihood in the 1971 Croatian Spring), the highest number of politicalprisoners per capita in the world, assassinations of dissidents, loss ofCroatian population due to illegal border escapes, underdevelopment ofCroatian regions and later-on, deals with western nations to get rid ofhis rural unemployed Croatian population overseas. Statistics in allhost nations where people from former Yugoslavia settled, show thatCroats were in the majority.

How many hundreds of thousands of deaths might have been avoided with a50-50 presence in 1944-45?

No Churchill-Stalin 50-50 SplitWe have been brainwashed with catchphrases such as the "50-50 Split" ofthe former Yugoslav territory between Churchill and Stalin at Yalta, andthe "Tito-Stalin Split" in 1948, when Stalin renounced CommunistYugoslav membership of the Cominform. Mythology and intrigue surroundboth splits.

In mythology the "Tito-Stalin Split" has been the centre pin of the Titopersonality cult both in domestic and foreign policy. But, in reality,the "Tito-Stalin Split" was only a temporary break in a long-termrelationship between Tito and the Soviet Union. As soon as Kruschevsucceeded Stalin the split was over. It is no coincidence that boththe former Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union fell together near the closeof the 20th century.

The only type of split that did eventuate in post-WWII Yugoslavia wasnot territorial, but political and economic in form. The industrializingWest and the Eastern bloc gave to Yugoslavia the worst of both theirworlds, according to an analysis of IMF debtor nations.

Communist Yugoslavia, a military and police state complete withideological indoctrination, brutally enforced a command type economy,and was funded by the IMF which was dependant upon five differentconstitutional reforms to keep face in the democratic world. This wasTito's totalitarian legacy: a fifty-fifty hybrid split.

And, as for the Churchill-Stalin 50-50 Split, it didn't happen.

Tito's Iron CurtainBecause the Churchill-Stalin "50-50 Split" failed to take place afterWWII, Tito, emboldened by a strong Soviet presence, was able toconsolidate his totalitarian control and exterminate an entiregeneration of Croatian citizens. Indeed, what happened in reality was aTito-Churchill Split, but nobody has invented a phrase for that era!Tito was, for the West, a Benedict Arnold. Tito accepted Westernsupplies and money to fight fascism but then used it to consolidate hisown pro-soviet power base, and betrayed western interests, andterrorized his own citizens. By the time there was a temporary breakin Soviet-Yugoslav relations, it was already too late for half a millionCroatian citizens. Indeed Tito's immediate post-WWII terrorism was partof the reason why Churchill commented that an iron curtain had descendedupon Europe.

Instead of cooperation from Tito or Stalin, or any 50-50 division, theWest had to deal with Tito's threats, emboldened by his pro-SovietCentral Committee. It is highly unlikely that these Croatian civilianswould have been turned back from the British Sector in May 1945, enmasse, had the command realized the enormity of the massacres tofollow. There were no satellite cameras then. How could the elitecommand in the West who had led privileged lives begin to imagine orunderstand what lay in store for Croatian people. They had heard aboutStalin's genocide in the Ukraine but didn't yet equate Stalin with Tito.

After the release of documents thirty years later we learned that it wasTito who had been responsible for the absence of any timely territorial50-50 division at the end of 1944, and not the fault of Western Allies.Instead the Western Allies had to deal with Tito's defiance regardingAnglo/American landings on the Dalmatian coast (as revealed in archivalaccounts re Tito & his Prime Minister, Subasic); and with Tito'sterritorial ambitions in Slovenia or Trieste. More than once Tito madeit clear to the western Allies that if they landed in Croatia they wouldhave to deal with a powerful resistance by his Yugoslav Partisandivisions along the Dalmatian coastline.

Lessons UnlearnedWhat happened after WWII in Tito's Yugoslavia was worse than whathappened in Milosevic's Yugoslavia in the 1990s, but this time thesatellite camera enabled the world to witness everything, and ultimatelyput an end to it. And eventually, you guessed it, a 50-50 split ofBosnia-Herzegovina is now monitored by four nations, but this was neverto happen in post-WWII Yugoslavia.

Thus, massacres of hospital patients from Vukovar occurred in 1991 justas they had occurred in Jazovka in 1945. For example, a karst sinkholein Sosice near Zagreb contains the remains of 40,000 skeletons andevidence from the Croatian hospital. Similarly during recentconstruction of a highway in Slovenia tens of thousands of skeletonswere uncovered with evidence that they were men, women and children,mostly of Croatian origin.

Time for an Accountable LeadershipA recent critic of an article in Zadarski List, Ivo Matanovic fromZadar, commented that under Tito it was the bloodiest era which Croatiaever experienced in its history. (HV, 23.1.04) The Yugoslav/Montenegrandissident, Milovan Djilas was quoted as saying that Croats had to diethat Yugoslavia could live. American President Truman also remarked onthe genocidal policies of Tito. Indeed more Croats died under Titoduring 40 years than in the previous 400 years of occupied Croatia.Tito's infamous reign of terror is similar to Pol Pot's, and hecertainly did not "fulfil the destiny of the Croatian nation".

For the sake of regional stability in the 21st century, it's time forold Croatian cadres to get in touch with their fellow man. If theCroatian media and the Croatian leadership cannot get it right today,how can Croatian people expect the rest of the world to reallyunderstand their plight? In the British House of Commons in 1874,Disraeli remarked that "Upon the education of the people, the fate ofthis country depends". In the same theme, according to H.G. Wells,"Human history becomes more and more a race between education andcatastrophe". In the Croatian nation there is a need for deeperunderstanding about the cruel decades of terror under Tito!